on 8 years

Today is our 8th wedding anniversary. We've been through a lot of transitions together in those years - from just graduated from college and going out to find our very first apartment, through medical school and our farthest move away from family for residency, to buying our first house and first car and getting a dog.

My elders (i.e., parents) laugh at me in a loving “I told you so” kind of way when I say it, but we were so young when we got married (21) that lots of changes and transitions were inevitable - we were kind of still growing up. But I absolutely love that we got to do it together. One funny example: when we first got married we loved to go out to eat, but it was a big deal to get to do so (medical school costs big bucks!), so we tended to go safe - hamburgers & chicken tenders, anyone? Now we kind of live to get to try new restaurants and exciting new foods (helps to be into the dual income category now), and we're pretty amused by our previous lack of culinary adventurousness. That took a little growing up...

2006: wedding, first apartment, start of medical school | 2007: start of my job | 2008: start of medical school clinical rotations | 2009: residency interviews, month in Baltimore for an away rotation | 2010: match day, move to Cincinnati, first house, residency intern year, start of working from home, Ginger joins the family | 2011: residency year two, 5th anniversary trip to Mexico, trip to Arizona | 2012: third year of residency, travels to Dominican Republic, South Carolina | 2013: 3-month research rotation (best part of residency), pregnancy & arrival of baby Hendrik!

Of course after 7.5 years of marriage, our relationship had its biggest change ever last fall, as we transitioned from a married couple to a couple of parents...

Having a baby certainly alters a marriage, and there are certainly difficult parts, but there are really great ones too, that make being married even better (and I already really liked being married to Peter before). I feel like we've always been a pretty good pair, but I love how being parents together makes us into a team. And seeing how proud Peter's was of my growing belly and, now that he's here, our growing boy, makes me love him all the more. He's a great dad, and there's nobody I'd rather be doing all of this great stuff of life with.

Everyday life as a team of parents has been fun (Friday nights are all about baby bath time now, and we think it's kind of great), but as we start this next year of marriage, I can't wait to keep doing the things we most love to do together, except now as a family of three - especially traveling (family trip to Florida coming up!) and enjoying quality time over weekend brunches (Hendrik's 1st major outing was of course to our favorite breakfast place).

And of course to keep doing things we love as just a couple sometimes too, like exploring the menus of great restaurants together - starting with our anniversary date night plans this weekend... can't wait to get back to Boca!